The March issue of Pacific Affairs contains five articles, one Perspectives piece, a multi-authored review essay, and our regular and generous installment of book reviews.

In the issue’s opening article, “Feelings of Home Amongst Tamil Migrant Workers in Singapore’s Little India,” author Wajihah Hamid explores the everyday experiences of contemporary Tamil migrant male workers in Singapore’s Little India through the concept of transnational home. While the homely feelings of these migrant men highlight homesickness, their unhomely experiences demonstrate how governmentality and control of migrant bodies have been reconfigured within Little India and Singapore.

In the following article, “The Evolving Power of the Core Executive: A Case Study of Japan’s ICT Regulation after the 1980s,” author Masahiro Mogaki examines the transformation of the Japanese state through an exploration of that country’s ICT (Information and Communications Technology) regulation after the 1980s. What he finds is state transformation with the fluid change of power within the core executive, which can be understood as a reconstitution of the Japanese state in response to challenges both sector-specific and beyond. He concludes with the argument that the Japanese state has retained dominance over society through its reconstitution mobilised by the core executive.

This is followed by multi-authored piece, “How are Chinese Students Ideologically Divided? A Survey of Chinese College Students’ Political Self-Identification.” Through a survey of students from six elite Chinese universities, authors Fen Lin, Yanfei Sun and Hongxing Yang explore the current outlook of Chinese youth’s political identities and analyze the factors conditioning their identity formation. The results reveal that the majority of these college students either claim to be apolitical or to be liberals. Also found was that among various channels of political (re)socialization, family plays a weak role, while mass media has a strong influence on students’ political orientation. The authors conclude that such ideological patterns are rooted in the student movements and intellectual transition in China over the past four decades.

Next, Benjamin Habib, in his “Balance of Incentives: Why North Korea Interacts with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change,” explores the hypothesis that capacity-building incentives that feed into the leadership perpetuation and state survival imperatives of the North Korean government represent the most likely explanation for North Korea’s interaction with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in relation to environmental vulnerabilities that would threaten those imperatives. He finds a strong probability that North Korea is utilising the UNFCCC as a capacity-building vehicle in both its agricultural and energy sectors, a weak possibility that North Korea’s climate change vulnerability is a compelling incentive for greenhouse gas mitigation, and a weak possibility that North Korea is using the Clean Development Mechanism as a means for generating foreign currency revenue.

China’s economic presence in Latin America has taken on new heights. In the next paper, “China’s Economic Statecraft in Latin America: Evidence from China’s Policy Banks,” authors Kevin P. Gallagher and Amos Irwin reveal how China’s loans to Latin American governments exceed those of the World Bank, The Inter-American Development Bank, and the US Export Import Bank. Further, the majority of this finance is for the energy, mining, and infrastructure sectors. However, contrary to conventional wisdom, the authors argue that China is driven by commercial concerns, not geopolitical ones.

Next we present one of our occasional Perspectives piece. In “Paths of Integration for Sexual Minorities in Korea,” authors Joseph Yi and Joe Phillips write how the prevailing model among the LGBT in Korea is to participate in dense, sexually active but separate and passive enclaves, while a small, vocal group of LGBT activists pursue activist “identity politics,” seeking more open integration and government recognition and protection as an oppressed minority. In their essay, the authors highlight an alternative: a “bridging-dialogue” model of integration wherein LGBT individuals nurture social ties and communicate with members of the larger society in ostensibly non-political settings, such as civic organizations, school friends, and university forums.

Finally, we present a multi-author review essay titled, “Indian Political Studies: In Search of Distinctiveness.” Here, authors John Harriss, Aseema Sinha, Andrew Wyatt, and Sinderpal Singh all contribute to a review of the multi-volume Political Science: ICSSR Research Surveys and Explorations.

Mission Statement

Pacific Affairs is an interdisciplinary journal committed to advancing empirical and conceptual knowledge in the field of Asia Pacific-focussed area studies. We view area studies as combining serious commitment to original research on specific regions and countries in Asia and the Pacific with insights and analytical rigour derived from multiple disciplines and various theoretical perspectives.

2013 Journal Citation Report Impact Factor

Impact Factor Score: .444 (27 out of 63 Area Studies journals) – cites in 2013 to articles published in 2011 and 2012.

5-Year Impact Factor Score: 0.552 (21 out of 63 Area Studies journals) – cites in 2012 to articles published from 2008 to 2012

Immediacy Index Score: 0.087 (25 out of 63 Area Studies journals) – cites in 2013 of articles published in 2013

Article Influence® Score: 0.255 (31 out of 63 Area Studies journals)

Note: We maintain a sustained and in-depth intellectual and administrative interest in the various debates concerning the uses, meanings, and limits of bibliometric indexes such as the annual JCR reports. We list the information above not as an unthinking endorsement of the use of these indexes to define notions of “quality,” but as information that forms part of a larger set of ongoing attempts to map the patterns and understand the meanings of scholarly communications in the digital age. Although Pacific Affairs embraces careful and contextualized use of all bibliometric data, our view is that the 5-Year Impact Factor (regardless of our absolute and/or relative numbers) is likely the most significant measure, given that we aspire to publish articles that based on the depth of empirical research and the clarity of the arguments will ideally retain their relevance for at least five years after their publication.

About Us

Pacific Affairs is a peer-reviewed, independent, and interdisciplinary scholarly journal focussing on important current political, economic and social issues throughout Asia and the Pacific. Each issue contains approximately five new articles and 40-45 book reviews. Published continuously since 1928 under the same name, Pacific Affairs has been located on the beautiful campus of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, since 1961. The journal is committed to providing to the scholarly community and the world at large high quality research on Asia and the Pacific that takes readers beyond the headlines and across multiple disciplines.

Indexing

Pacific Affairs is indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), MasterFILE Premier, Public Affairs Information Service and PAIS ARCHIVE, International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, World Affairs Online and Bibliography of Asian Studies. We are both indexed and have abstracts of articles appear in Web of Science, GEOBASE, Canadian Periodical Index, Academic Search Complete, CBCA Complete, Historical Abstracts, International Political Science Abstracts, America: History and Life, Public Administration and CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts. Ingenta is the electronic provider for our online subscriptions. Pacific Affairs was selected as one of the first journals to join the JSTOR archives at their inception and has a four year moving wall.